The field of remote sensing is growing rapidly. Remote sensing has been found to be useful in security applications, as well as for monitoring environmental, commercial and industrial processes. Remote sensing may include capturing visible light images, temperature, vibrations, seismic, infrared images, chemical or acoustic data. The remote data is either stored locally for later collection, or is transmitted via a wired or wireless connection to a data collection point. However, the use of remote imagers has been limited to applications where the remote camera has a stable power source, such as connection to a utility grid, or where the camera system can be conveniently accessed to change or charge its battery. Accordingly, the applications for remote imaging have been limited.
One application that could benefit from remote sensing is remote meter reader. Meters, such as gas, electric, water, or other utility meters, are attached to nearly every home or business. These meters are often manually read every month, requiring a utility company to send out a human meter-reader. This is an expensive and time consuming process, and since the meters are often located in private property areas, the meter-readers may be subject to dog bites, human attack, or other dangers. Due to the high cost of using human readers, some utilities use estimated bills. With an estimated bill, the utility actually reads the meter only a limited number of times per year, and based on historical records, estimates bills for the months when no reading is taken. At each reading cycle, there is a true-up, where the utility credits for any over-charge, or a larger bill to make up for underpayments. Either way, the estimated bills are a stop-gap so the utility can save money, and often leads to great consumer dissatisfaction.
Some new utility meters are being installed that have wired or wireless communication of usage data to the utility. These meters directly address the problem raised above, and in the long term, may be a satisfactory solution. However, these meters are quite expensive, and there are millions of legacy meters installed. It will take many years, if not decades, to replace and update all these meters. To date, there is no practical way to automatically read these meters.